Here is a list of Ethiopian cultural events that will take place during the summer months outside Ethiopia.
If you know of any other, you can add it to the comment section.

Ethiopian Heritage Camp
May 28–30, 2016
Redwood Glen - Loma Mar, CA, USA
http://africancradle.org/camp/

ESFNA 2016
July 3-9, 2016
Toronto, Canada
http://www.esfna.net/

5th Annual AESAONE Soccer Tournament and Social Events
July 3 – 9,  2016
Alexandria, Virginia – USA
http://www.aesaone.org/

Miss Ethiopia USA Pageant 2016
July 3, 2016
Silver Spring, MD – USA
https://www.facebook.com/missethiopiausa/

East Coast Ethiopian Culture Camp
July 8-10, 2016
Biddeford, ME – US
http://www.ethiopianculturecamp.org/

Ethiopian Summer Festival 
July 9, 2016
Wesburn Park 10 am to 8 pm
Vancouver, BC - Canada
http://www.vancouverethiopia.com/

Weekend Festival - Sixth Ethiopian Sports and Culture Festival
July 9 – 10, 2016
East London Rugby Club - West Ham Station, London - UK 
http://escf.co.uk/6th-annual-ethiopian-sport-and-culture-festival-in-uk/

14th Ethiopian Sports and Cultural Festival in Europe
July 27–30, 2016
2263 SX Leidschndam - Holland
http://www.escfe.net/

Ethiopian Heritage and Culture Camp
August 4-7, 2016
Massanetta Springs
Camp and Conference Center
Harrisonburg, VA, USA
http://www.heritageandculturecamp.org/ethiopian.php

Tigray Festival 2016
August 3-7, 2016
Washington DC, USA
http://utna.org/

Festival TEGARU Europe
Agosto 18-21 , 2016
Netherlands
http://aigaforum.com/events/Tigray-Festival-EU-2016.php

 
AliciA

“Fantasy and Masks” by Nigerian artist Uche Okeke

Depending on your country of residence and your family configuration, your adoption agency may not let you adopt out of birth order. That means any child you plan to adopt must be younger than any children you already have at home.
It’s my experience that many adoption agencies in the US don’t follow that rule and will let you adopt any child, no matter your family configuration.
This is a hot topic in adoption forums and between adoption professionals.

You may adopt out of birth order on purpose, bit it’s also true that when you adopt from Ethiopia you never fully know the real biological age of the child you’re bringing home.
In our case, we thought we were bringing a 5 year old girl, but it turned out she was almost 8. I already had a 4 year old girl, a 7 year old boy, and a 13 year old boy, so at that time I thought there was going to be just one child younger than her.

There is also the subject of development in children that come from hard places.
A boy might look 4, but his body is really 7 , and his brain can be 2 or 3 years old due to malnourishment, abuse, trauma, etc..
Sometimes children coming from a hard background look younger on the outside than their biological age, but they have the experience of even older children, since they had to fend for themselves, or take care of younger siblings or elderly relatives. They know what is to suffer hunger, rejection, to live on the streets, to lie and steal to survive. But at the same time they might be lacking education and basic health care, so their cognitive age is way below their real age.
Then they come to a new culture, to parents and teachers with different expectations, and it can be hard for them to surrender control to others that they don’t even know or understand. We expect them to behave according to their age and the spot we assign them in the family, but they simply can’t, for a long, LONG time.

So, no matter what you do, you can end with a hard situation.

Of course older children deserve a family, as much or even more than babies, but
my opinion now is that older adopted children need full attention from their parents, and probably need to be the only child in the family, at least for some years, unless you are adopting siblings or you adopt a couple of children at the same time that although not biologically related, have been together for a long time and have fully bonded.

The needs of an older child are so unique that it is really difficult to meet them and at the same time give attention to the other children in the family. We end up neglecting everybody, even ourselves, and the balance breaks apart.

Many come with mental problems that take a long time and money to treat. Some have been abused and replay that abuse in their younger siblings. Others are extremely aggressive or are clinically depressed.
Even if you are prepared to deal with those issues, your children at home may not deserve to suffer.
Remember that an adoption is forever, even if the situation escalates to a point where you need to break the bond with your adopted child. You may remove a child from a home, but you can never erase the psychological scars left in everybody involved.

AliciA

We have come to a time in our family when we have started to give some of our children some freedoms, some unsupervised play time. We can no longer be there wherever they go, watching them.
And I’m terrified.

My younger son just turned 10 a month ago and he’s asking for some privileges, like riding his bike alone in our neighborhood. But he’s not the typical white bread American kid; he’s black… dark black, and in the eyes of others, he’s perceived as a threat. 
So far I’m letting him go to and from school alone in his bike, and sometimes in the afternoon he goes to the playground to play basketball or soccer.
We decided to give him a simple cellphone so he can call in case of an emergency, but that’s all the protection I can offer him. I can’t shield him anymore of nasty looks, insults, or suspicion from neighbors and police. 
He still looks young for his age, and that’s a plus, but sooner than later he will become a full blown teenager and every move he makes will be judged with a different set of rules than those applied to his white peers.

Recent news are making me more and more afraid of what can happen to him if he interacts with police; a black teen with a immature brain, fast talking, invincible…
We are starting to see flashes of his future adolescent personality, and I’m trembling.
He has always been an impulsive boy, a result of trauma suffered as a young child in Ethiopia, and we have learned to navigate his mood swings to calm him down and teach him about controlling feelings he sometimes doesn’t understand.
But we are his parents, we know him. We know he is a loving kid, funny and caring, that has no trace of meanness in him. We know he would never hurt anyone.
But will the police be able to see that? Will the authority, who perceive the most innocent behavior in black people as a threat, understand that?

Countless recent examples show the contrary.
If the police can knock down a grandfather who was just walking peacefully and leave him paralyzed, what chances has a young black kid?
The disturbing video that shows how Sureshbhai Patel was thrown to the floor is a proof that no black male is safe anymore.
Nothing like this could have ever happened to my father, a white blue-eyed man, who used to walk our neighborhood when he visited us years ago. He was also here to meet his grandson, he also couldn’t speak English, he also didn’t carry a gun.
I never felt he was in danger then.

Now I fear for my black son’s safety…

Links:
US policeman charged for pushing Indian man BBC
Driving While Black  Wikipedia

AliciA

I follow Brazilian artist Kiusam de Oliveira on Facebook, and she posted a link to an artist supply shop in Brazil that sells a pack of crayons to paint different skin tones.
I immediately searched if there was anything similar in the US and I found this in Amazon.com (Crayola doesn’t list them in its site):
 
Notice any difference?
Basically Crayola grab a bunch of its regular colors that already produce,  bundle them together and created a “multicultural” pack. There is a good article on Latino Rebels that discuss this product in detail.

This product clearly reflects how America understand diversity today.

On the opposite side, the Brazilian product offers a good understanding of skin hues and diversity. But of course it was created in a different context.
This simple pack of colors is part of an effort of the Brazilian Ministry of Culture to overcome the prejudices and discriminatory attitudes of racism in education.

Again, let’s compare:

BRAZIL	USA

Shame on you, Crayola!

Alicia